Wednesday, September 7, 2016

Coventry, Warwickshire

Set in concrete

Egged on by my reading of the recent Historic England book on Coventry,* I wanted to use my visit to the city to have a look at something I’d missed before, the concrete mural (actually an entire structural wall playing the additional role of public sculpture) outside the former Three Tuns pub in the city centre. I came away glad I’d done so, and full of admiration for its creator, the sculptor William Mitchell.

Mitchell was in the forefront of finding new ways of casting concrete for sculptures, including the use of polystyrene and polyurethane moulds. He worked widely and closely with architects, notably in new town developments such as Harlow, for the London County Council, and on new buildings in places such as the Barbican in London. For this mural in Coventry, Mitchell employed polystyrene sheet cut with hot wire set against the shuttering before the concrete was poured. The concrete incorporates pebble aggregate and was cast in one piece, with rectangular spaces left for the window openings.

The forms Mitchell created in the Coventry mural (made in 1966) are bold and abstract – and I think they work well as a succession of engaging abstract forms. But they also suggest all kinds of possible visual interpretations. People have seen in them the sun and its rays, mechanical components such as gear wheels, or bits of a city viewed from above. The mural’s listing refers to the sculpture as an example of Mitchell’s Aztec style and it certainly does have a Meso-American feel to it, although I don’t know whether the artist saw it in those terms.

Looking at it took me back to an evening years ago at an exhibition of mostly abstract paintings by an artist friend. Standing next to me was a middle-aged woman with a small girl, perhaps her granddaughter or niece. Together they were imagining the trees, rivers, and animals that they could imagine in these works of art. I quickly dismissed from my mind any thought that this was a rather naive way of looking at abstract painting – these things were there sure enough, if one applied a little thought to them. I feel rather the same about these William Mitchell murals – you can look at them on more than one level, and that’s a sign the artist is on to something, especially when it’s public art, and bound to be seen by anyone and everyone.

I know some people look down on work like this, done in concrete, a substance that they find dull and grey. If there were a hierarchy of sculptural materials,† concrete would be near the bottom, well below marble, bronze, and wood. And it’s true that a concrete work, in strong relief like this one, ideally needs some strong light to set off the forms with defining shadows. As it is, the front of the pub is in a shady spot, though perhaps the sun would have moved around later in the day to give it some welcome sideways illumination. But there’s still something to see here, and something, I’d say, to celebrate – the artful arrangement of shapes, the way the linear quality of the relief encourages your eye to follow the design across the wall, the texture of the material. I’m glad this relief is listed and unlikely to go the way of so many other William Mitchell pieces,¶ cut down and chucked away, because nobody wants to look at concrete art.§

*Jeremy and Caroline Gould, Coventry: The Making of a Modern City 1939–73
Published by Historic England; see my review here.

†I’ve mentioned this idea of hierarchy in terms of building materials a few times in blog posts; the notion won’t go away.

¶Mitchell continued to make concrete works into the 1970s, and helped develop a special formula, called Faircrete, that would hold relief patterns drawn into it while also setting very hard. However, by the mid-1970s British architects had turned away from his style and he worked increasingly abroad. The 1990s saw him involved with various projects for Harrods owner Mohammed Al Fayed.

§Those still not convinced might prefer to look at my recent post about a Georgian building in Coventry, here.

Grenockian: Thank you. I know this sort of stuff is for most people like marmite: you either love it or hate it. I just want people to have a closer look. And don't worry. This blog isn't going to jump on the bandwagon of the Great Brutalism Revival, much as like *some* of the buildings. There will still be much more brick and stone and timber here than concrete.

Since concrete can be poured into any shape you like, I wonder why this sculpture has to have such an amorphous, floppy look. Unfortunately, juxtaposing it with that lovely Georgian house in Coventry, you've rather emphasised its lack of structure, its defiance of order and balance. Loving some parts of Coventry is still hard - even for somebody with good memories of being there, brought up a few miles away. Also, paint. etc. can be applied to concrete, and the colour of the mixture varied somewhat. Concrete grey seems rather uninspired as well as uninspiring.

William Mitchell's work I find of increasing interest adn your entry here has stimulated me to pop to Coventry tonight to see this. We run a walking tour of Birmingham and look at Mitchell's artwork on buildings in Broad Street. However his best remaining work in Birmingham is certainly at Hockley Circus underneath the flyover. You can see what it looks like on our website here: http://www.positivelybirmingham.co.uk/walkingtour/index.html

The thing I find interesting is that while the subways at Hockley Circus are covered in graffiti the William Mitchell art is almost untouched - a different street art form clearly appreciates their predecessors and the two actually sit well together! Mitchell's recent book on his life "Self Portrait; The eyes within' is well worth getting and can be found on Amazon at good prices. Regarding the drabness of concrete in the Hockley Circus work Mitchell used a mixture of dyed concretes and along with the weathering the effects really are very pleasing.

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About Me

I'm the author of The English Buildings Book, England's Abbeys, Restoration, the book of Adam Hart-Davis's series What the Romans Did For Us, other books about architecture and buildings, and various books on other subjects, including Dorling Kindersley's handbooks on Mythology (written with Neil Philip) and Religions. IN THIS BLOG I share my encounters with some of my favourite English buildings, including many that are little known and that get short shrift in the architectural history books. Look here for accounts of breweries, prefabs, power stations, corrugated-iron barns and the occasional parish church as I share my meetings with England's remarkable buildings. IN THIS COLUMN, JUST BELOW HERE, are links to more information about me, my books, and the courses and talks I give. A LITTLE FURTHER DOWN are some links to a series of short articles that make up a very brief history of English architecture.

MORE ABOUT PHILIP WILKINSON

ABOUT ENGLISH ARCHITECTURE

The English Buildings Book

Published by English Heritage, The English Buildings Book, by Philip Wilkinson and Peter Ashley, covers everything from parish churches to castles, town halls to market halls, barns to bars. Now out in paperback.

Great Buildings

Also written by Philip Wilkinson, Great Buildings is a spectacular overview of fifty of the world's architectural masterpieces – each one a shining example of its type or style – that gives readers the chance to 'get under the bricks and mortar'. Each building is shown in numerous pictures, to create the impression of a series of guided tours.

GREAT DESIGNS

One more of my books. A survey of the history of design through 100 objects, from the Swiss Army knife to the Citroen DS, the Thonet bentwood chair to the Anglepoise lamp, Great Designs showcases the work of such diverse designers as William Morris and Phillippe Starck.